Womb to Tomb
by NeverDreamsOfMe
Summary: "'Forget my face,' he had said, but Johanna never forgot." The unwitting last meeting between a father and daughter and its' impact on Johanna. Oneshot. Rated T for blood and gore just in case.


Disclaimer: I do not own Sweeney Todd.

I don't even remember how I came up with this one so enjoy xD

...

Johanna sprinted though the London streets, eyes fixed on the boys' back before her. The night was dark, gloomy, full of ghosts, and she didn't want to lose him. In her fright she reached out for his hand. Without looking back, he clasped her hand tightly and gave it a comforting squeeze. Immediately she felt a little better. She was sure the cap covering her hair would slip off at any second, she felt her lungs would give out from the exertion, and above all she felt peculiar in these pants, but she was with Anthony. She was safe.

She hoped.

He let go of her hand to charge up the stairs at the back of a meat pie shop. She followed closely. This was the barbers' shop Anthony had told her about, the place where she would wait for him and the coach.

"Mr. Todd!" Anthony called, bursting through the door. Johanna stopped just inside there door. _There's no one here._ The thought of being left here alone was enough to make her hyperventilate.

Anthony turned. "You wait for him here." He started to walk out the door, "I'll return with the coach in less than half an hour." He stopped, seeing the look on Johannas' face. "Don't worry," he said, gripping the lapel of her jacket lovingly, "No one will recognize you. You're safe now."

"Safe?" Johanna didn't mean for it to be a question, but she couldn't help it, "So we run away and all our dreams come true?"

He smiled at her, possibilities lighting up his face, "I hope so."

"I've never had dreams," Johanna stated sullenly, matter-of-factly, "Only nightmares."

"Johanna," he stroked her shoulder, "Once we leave this place, all the ghosts will go away."

"No, Anthony," She insisted pessimistically, "They _never_ go away." There was a short silence. Anthony looked at her affectionately as if thinking, _You're hopeless._

"I'll be back to you," Anthony promised, "Half an hour and we'll be free!" He ran out the door and down the stairs. Johanna watched him go, admiring his optimism but not catching any of it. "_We'll_ be free," he had said.

_Maybe he will, but I won't._

Trying to shake off her bad feelings, Johanna looked around the room. It was small, rectangular, and dark because the lone lamp wasn't lit. The only light came in from the yellow streetlamp outside, which threw odd and sinister shadows on the wall. To her left was a window, under that a big chest. In the corner across from the chest stood a broken mirror. A huge window took up almost the entire slanting ceiling opposite Johanna. Ther barbers' chair waited for its' next customer below that window. A small iron stove was at Johannas' right hand, beyond that another small window. Next to that window, in the corner opposite the broken mirror, was a dresser.

Johanna crossed the room to this dresser now, drawn by the numerous objects on its' surface. A vast majority of these objects were the barbers' tools. One personal item caught her eye: an open folding picture frame. In one frame, a beautiful young woman was photographed. Opposite, she was holding a baby. The glass seemed to be stained. Johanna ran her fingers lightly over the top of it, suddenly reminded that she had no mother.

_Not knowing that it was her mother in the picture._

In front of the pictures laid a small case. It was open as well. The gleam of silver caught Johannas' eye. Her hand trailed down the picture frame and into the case. Her fingers closed around one of the objects inside. She lifted it up to eye level and opened it slightly, admiring the razors' shine.

_Not knowing she looked just like her father._

A sudden noise made Johanna jump and drop the razor. Someone was climbing the stairs, calling for the Beadle. Johannas' heart was pounding too hard to wonder why on earth the Beadle would be at a barber shop at this time of night. She frantically scanned the room for a hiding place. Her eyes landed on the trunk next to the door. She ran to it, lifted the heavy lid open, and jumped in. The lid closed over her head at the same time the door opened.

Johanna cowered in the dark, panting with terror. Then she realized she might be heard and closed her mouth so fast she nearly choked on her tongue. She could hear what was going on outside, but everything was muffled. She heard the person, realizing it was a woman, moving around the room and crooning nonsense to herself. At least, it sounded like nonsense to Johanna in the filtered darkness of the trunk. Suddenly the woman stopped. There was another voice at the door, barely audible. Johanna wouldn't have been able to hear it if the trunk weren't right next to the door. She heard the woman shrieking something about the devils' wife. Her voice got quieter and there was a short silence. The next noise Johanna heard was very odd: a loud thump, though it didn't sound like anything fell. Rather, it sounded like something clicked back into place, because Johanna felt the tremor in the floor but not the crack of anything falling.

The door slammed open again, jarring Johannas' back. "Where is she?" demanded a voice as plain as day, as familiar to her as her own hand. Johanna squeezed into a tighter ball. It was _him_, the judge, her twisted guardian who wanted to marry her, the very person she was running away from. She prayed he would think nothing of the trunk. It seemed she was spared, because the quiet voice spoke next in what sounded like a reassuring tone. She strained to catch the words.

"... with my neighbor... sailor did not... error of..." the quiet voice said. When the judge asked a question, the quiet voice answered, "Oh yes..." Though they continued to talk, Johanna could not hear any more, nor could she make head or tail of what she had heard.

Footsteps vibrated the floor. Johanna's heart stopped; he was entering the room! But they walked to the middle of the room, away from her. All was quiet for a few minutes. Johannas' nerves were frayed. They were in the room, but what were they _doing_? She thought she caught a few snatches of conversation. There was no way she could escape without being seen. _I'll have to wait until they leave._ The thought agitated her.

An incomprehensible exclamation barrelled though the trunk. Johanna froze. Who was it that had screamed? She couldn't tell. The strange tremor she had felt before shook the floor again. The silence that followed deafened her, strangled her with suspense. _I've got to see what's going on_, she finally thought. She pushed the lid of the trunk open and stared in shock.

Blood was everywhere. The thickest coat covered the chair, but it congealed on the floor and dripped from the huge window. Neither the judge nor the woman were in sight. Kneeling in front of the chair was a man that could have only been the barber. His arms were upraised as if lost in prayer. He did say something about angels before he turned and looked directly into Johannas' eyes.

The breath caught in the young womans' chest. Like a mouse before a lynx, she could not move. Slowly, the barber stood up, picking something up off of the chair as he did so. Johanna saw it as he came near - one of his razors, wet with blood. It filled the small crack of the room that Johanna could see, narrowed her field of vision so that it was the only thing she saw. Every drop of blood running down it became magnified. She panicked and started to sink back down into the darkness, thinking somehow that the lid closing over her head would protect her. But the barber lifted it easily, looking down at her like she was something unpleasant he'd just found on the bottom of his shoe.

"Come for a shave, have you lad?" he asked. His voice was quiet but full of murder. Blood ran down his face and stained his clothes.

"N-no, I," Johanna stammered. The barber reached down and grabbed her left arm. He roughly lifted her up. Johannas' leg caught on the inside of the trunk as he lifted her out. She would have fallen, but the barbers' cruel, tight grip on her arm prevented it.

"Everyone needs a good shave," he said as he threw Johanna into the chair. She kept her eyes on the razor as he raised it up. A frightening smile spread across his face. Johanna prepared herself for death, for the moment he would plunge his razor into her heart, when someone screamed downstairs.

The barber turned away from Johanna to look out the door. For a split-second, he hung there with indecision. He then seemed to make up his mind before his head snapped back to the trembling youth in his chair. He brought the razor down but only to her face. The lapel of her jacket, which Anthony had touched so lovingly not ten minutes before, was caught now in the unweilding grip of the barber. He brought his eyes down to hers. Johanna could count the blood drops clinging to his eyelashes like tears.

_And father and daughter stood face-to-face, destined to never know each other._

"Forget my face," he said intensely, but still softly. He released Johannas' jacket and stalked out of the room. Johanna clung to the bloody chair, heart racing, for a long time. Regaining some of her wits, she moved outside so Anthony wouldn't find her in a room in that state. When Anthony returned to get her, he was apalled to find her sitting out on the bottom stair. She explained that she needed some air and assured him of her well-being despite obvious signs to the contrary. Finally they climbed into the coach to start their life together.

Like Johanna had promised, the ghosts never went away. Particularly the barber. His face haunted her dreams with a persistance that she never understood. For years afterward she woke up screaming, the scent of blood in her nostrils. Anthony tried to ask what she dreamed about, but Johanna would never tell. She loved him, but there were some things that he would never understand. "Forget my face," he had said, but Johanna never forgot. That face followed her to her deathbed, as she drew a straightrazor across her own throat.

...

Greetings from Colorado! I finished this on the road to my uncles', where I'm posting this now! :D Thanks for reading, and please review!


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